


fish have no word for water

by Etharei



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Kissing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-05
Updated: 2008-07-05
Packaged: 2017-10-17 20:11:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/180753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etharei/pseuds/Etharei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ianto develops a new pastime.</p><p>Written for <a href="http://horizonssing.livejournal.com">Horizons Sing</a> challenge, Day #4.</p>
            </blockquote>





	fish have no word for water

**Title:** Fish have no word for water  
 **Author:** etharei  
 **Rating:** PG  
 **Timeline:** directly after "Greeks Giving Gifts" (107)  
 **Spoilers:** "Cyberwoman" (104), "Greeks Giving Gifts" (107)  
 **Summary:** _Ianto develops a new pastime._  
 **Author's Notes:** Title taken from a quote in the book _Small Gods_ by Terry Pratchett (a Discworld novel).  
 **Disclaimer:** Torchwood and all the characters and situations featured therein are the property of Russell T. Davies, the BBC and their affiliates. I’m only borrowing them for purely non-profit, recreational purposes.

 _  
**(SITTIN' ON) THE DOCK OF THE BAY  
\- written by Otis Redding and Steve Cropper**   
_

_Sittin' in the mornin' sun  
I'll be sittin' when the evenin' come  
Watching the ships roll in  
And then I watch 'em roll away again, yeah_

 _I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay  
Watching the tide roll away  
Ooo, I'm just sittin' on the dock of the bay  
Wastin' time_

 _I left my home in Georgia  
Headed for the 'Frisco bay  
'Cause I've had nothing to live for  
And look like nothin's gonna come my way_

 _So I'm just gonna sit on the dock of the bay  
Watching the tide roll away  
Ooo, I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay  
Wastin' time_

 _Look like nothing's gonna change  
Everything still remains the same  
I can't do what ten people tell me to do  
So I guess I'll remain the same, yes_

 _Sittin' here resting my bones  
And this loneliness won't leave me alone  
It's two thousand miles I roamed  
Just to make this dock my home_

 _Now, I'm just gonna sit at the dock of the bay  
Watching the tide roll away  
Oooo-wee, sittin' on the dock of the bay  
Wastin' time_

  


* * *

After Lisa, after the fall, after the destruction of everything he’d staked his life on, Ianto develops a new pastime. Natural, he thinks, after months (a lifetime) of dedicating his body and soul to one project; his efficiency honed to near-perfection by it and ingrained in him, so that no matter how much work he takes on, he stills finds himself with free time. The pastime doesn’t have a proper name – simpler than people-watching, more complex than just taking the air.

He immerses himself in people, in public life, in the vital parade of human society. He would sit (or stand, or stroll) where there are lots of people, entirely the outsider, and soak up the chatter, the interactions, the glimpses of journeys in progress. It settles him, comforts, counters the roiling uneasiness in his gut and the numbness everywhere else. There’s no schedule he can follow, but simply indulges whenever he can; taking slightly longer to return from an errand, popping out of the Tourist Information Center to stretch his legs, snatching minutes when some miracle has his colleagues all sitting down to paperwork at the same time.

Jack makes no pretence about not noticing, but neither does he draw attention to it nor interferes with Ianto’s excursions in any way. Ianto greatly appreciates this, even though he thinks that Jack must follow him on the CCTV network. He’s lost the right to ask for privacy and trust; he feels touched to be granted the dignity of an illusion of both.

Mary and the transporter and a tearful Tosh drives him out of the Hub earlier than usual. He wanders in the falling dusk, gazing out into the Bay, trying to absorb the people around him. A mother admonishing her young daughter for dripping ice-cream, three students with bags and books and beer bottles, an unshaven man clutching an empty whiskey bottle.

Night comes, and still he walks. The surroundings don’t empty so much as change their dressings, like switching clothing. He wonders what Tosh might have heard, with her pendant. Doesn’t worry about what she might have heard from him – nothing they don’t already know, if anything at all. The pain is still there, still deep, still large enough to take up the world… but even he is starting to find it old.

“She destroyed it,” says a voice from behind him. Ianto starts, tenses up, but is sufficiently accustomed to Jack’s habit of sneaking up on people and doesn’t turn around immediately. Jack continues, admiration in his voice, “Crushed it with her heel.”

“That’s good,” responds Ianto, a bit lamely. “Did you talk her into it?”

“She didn’t need to be. She just needed... assurance. Comfort. That’s really what she wanted, all along.”

 _Now_ Ianto turns to face Jack. He opens his mouth, and promptly forgets what he was going to say.

Jack grins, looking too innocent to be so. “What? Never seen a man in a t-shirt and jeans before?”

“I didn’t know if you even knew what those were, sir,” says Ianto, finding his voice. He can’t stop staring at Jack, though, and the Captain doesn’t mask his pleasure at being the recipient of Ianto’s dumbfounded attention. “If I may ask, why-?”

“Same reason you are,” Jack answers easily, nodding at Ianto’s own makeshift ensemble of loose jeans, shirt and hoodie.

Ianto forces himself to stop staring. “It’s just... you look so... normal.”

Some of the shine on Jack’s grin fades, and Ianto finds that he’s sorry for being the cause of it. “Believe it or not, I do know that sometimes it’s best not to... advertise. In this, I bet I can walk past Gwen and Owen and they wouldn’t recognize me.”

Ianto can well believe that; he wonders if he’d done so, himself, on one of his walks. He clears his throat. “Tosh will be all right?”

“I’m sure she will.” Jack starts walking again, at a leisurely pace; it never occurs to Ianto not to follow. “She’s tougher than you think.”

“I know, sir,” says Ianto, remembering a dark cellar in the countryside.

They walk in comfortable silence for a while, eventually ending up outside a bar and café that had a lovely view of the Bay. There seemed to be some sort of party going on inside, if the loud music and tacky decorations and raucous laughter were anything to go by. It doesn’t escape Ianto’s notice that the rest of the crowd look to be his age; and yet, he feels a world and a half removed from them.

Someone bumps into him from behind, Jack instinctively catches hold of his arms to steady him. Too close; he sees Jack’s eyelashes, the curve of his upper lip. Remembers the events of the day, and realizes that maybe Mary would not have had a hold on Tosh, if not for Tosh hiding everything inside herself.

Jack is already putting distance between them again, glaring at the half-drunk young man who’d not been looking where he was going. He appears to take Ianto’s intent gaze as persisting astonishment over his outfit. “There _is_ a time when I take the coat off, you know,” he says, for once without a trace of innuendo, smiling gently.

Funny, that it’s the lack of sexuality that does it; before he can think, Ianto surges against Jack, presses their lips together. He feels Jack’s startled intake on his skin, Jack’s fingers on his arms, and a couple of catcalls in the distance. Then Jack is kissing him back, drawing more whistles, and moisture, and heat, and _oh God_ the heady taste of Jack on his tongue. Lips part wider, noses bumping, Jack’s teeth grazing the edges of his mouth.

Ianto is breathless when he finally breaks away, even though it can’t have lasted more than a twenty seconds. His skin is tingling in odd places, his body aware and warm with rushing blood, and his hands seem disinclined to part company with Jack’s sides. He’s already leaning in again when a particularly lurid suggestion from a gawking partygoer makes him blush and look around.

Jack seems unconcerned about the attention they’re now getting, his eyes never leaving Ianto. “Hey,” he says quietly, waiting for Ianto’s gaze to meet his. “We’re just another two people enjoying the warm night out.” Jack nods his head towards the city at night, the sleepy Bay, and the half-moon over all. A distant, dusty part of Ianto’s mind remarks that the scene is quite romantic, actually. “And you don’t always have watch on the outside. If you want this.”

He does. He’s confused, and still hurting, and very likely broken in places, but there are Jack’s arms around him and strangers living their lives surrounding them and a whole city and space and time stretching out beyond that. Not far away, a pterodactyl is waiting for him to feed her, an SUV to stock with nets and bullets and extra wiring, files on aliens waiting for the archive. Yet he’s _human_ , human human human. And maybe he can convince himself that Jack is, too.

Ianto gestures toward the bar, smiles. “Fancy a drink?”


End file.
